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HD 182 
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A FSQ7S8T 



ADDRESSED TO THE 



HON. SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR, 



■BY- 



LOUIS JANIN, ESQ., 



OF THE 



NEW ORLEANS AND WASHINGTON BAR, 



AGAINST THE 



HON. WILLI© DETJMMOND, 



COMMISSIONER OF THE GENERAL LAND OFFICE. 



AND THE 



Maladministration of the United States Land Office at New Orleans. 



NEW ORLEANS: 

A. W. HYATT. STATIONER AND PRINTER 33 CAMP STREET, 

1873. 



£.3 GS tfS 






New Orleans, October 18th, 1873 
Hon. COLUMBUS DELANO, 

Secretary of the Interior : 

Sir— The contemptuous disfavor with which the Commissioner of the Gen- 
eral Land Office treats land matters coming before him from Louisiana, the 
oifensive discourtesy with which he treats me, the oldest man and oldest law- 
yer practicing before him, and endeavors to injure my law firm and those 
citizens of Louisiana who have confidence in us, compel me to address you, 
his superior, for redress. 

An unpleasant incident which gave rise to the present difficulty is explain- 
ed in a letter which I addressed to the Commissioner, under date of the 10th 
inst., of which I enclose two printed copies. At the foot of this present let- 
ter I shall annex an affidavit verifying the contents of that letter. 

This morning I received from Mr. E. H. Foster, the Surveyor General of the 

United States in Louisiana, the following letter: 

"Surveyor General's Office, 

"New Orleans, La., October 17th, 1873. 
"Mr. Louis Janin, 

" Bourbon St., New Orleans : 
" Sir — The following is a copy of a telegram received yesterday from the 
Commissioner of the General Land Office : 

" 'Washington, D. C, October 16, 1873. 
" • r. S. Surveyor Genl., 

" < N. O. La. : 
u ' Until further orders, deny the firm of Louis Janin & Son access to your 
records and papers, unless for the purpose of preparing charges against Gov- 
ernment officials, and refuse to recognize them as attorneys before your office 
under any circumstances. 

" 'WILLIS DRUMMOND, 

" ' Commissioner.' 
" Of course the authority of the Commissioner to give these directions, 
above copied, is unquestioned. 

. "Very respectfully, 

"E. W. FOSTER, 

"Surveyor General. " 
I am thus impelled to the disagreeable task of denouncing persons against 
whom, except Julian Neville, I have no private grievances. And I shall pre- 
fer charges that will fill you with astonishment. But as it is apparent from 
the telegrams of Commissioner Drummond, and the tone of his letter to my 
firm of the 2d inst., that I cannot expect from him even a courteous hearing 
and considerate attention, I shall submit my charges and proofs to you. 

For some time past I have been confined to my rooms by an accident, which 
even now prevents me from walking. I expect, however, in a few days to be 
well enough to be able to visit offices whence my evidence is to come. As, 
however, I have a great deal of professional business to occupy me, I shall 
not bestow much time for the present on these charges, but certainly enough 



to show that SirfakowsJci's and Ross' survey of T. 12 S. B. 11 E. S. E. District 
of Louisiana is grossly incorrect, calculated to work great confusion and mis- 
chief, ought never to have been approved, and should be rejected in toto as 
worse than worthless. 

I have the honor to be, sir, 

Very respectfully, 

Your obedient servant, 

LOUIS JANIN. 

Louis Janin, being duly sworn, deposes and says, that the contents of this 

letter, and of his above, mentioned letter to the Hon. Willis Drummond of 

the 10th inst., as stated from his own information, are true, and as stated 

upon information derived from others, he believes them to be true. 

LOUIS JANIX. 
Subscribed and sworn to before the undersigned. 

JULES MOSSY, 

U. S. Commissioner. 
New Orleans, October 22d, 1873. 
Hon. COLUMBUS DELANO, 

Secretary of the Interior : 

Sir — Please notice that the letter I addressed to you under date of the 18th 
inst. is verified by my oath. So, also, will be this letter. 

You will recollect the decision you made on the 5th of January, 1871, upon 
the fraudulent pretensions of Mrs. Myra Clark Gaines, under claim No. 104, 
confirmed in the name of Daniel Clark. The frauds which it is now attemp- 
ed to accomplish under color of Sulakowski's and Ross' survey, approved by 
the Surveyor General, are as glaring as that in which your decision defeated 
Mrs. Gaines. 

It is generally believed that a number of persons enjoying particular favor 
are interested in the partition of the spoils. I have neither the disposition nor 
the time at present to trace these frauds to their intended beneficiaries, but 
if there is any foundation for the common rumor and general belief, I have 
no doubt that the United States Receiver, Mr. Julian Neville, will be found to 
have been selected as an associate for the purpose of preventing my inter- 
ference and exposure of the fraud in the Land Office. The aim of these per- 
sons is to speculate at the expense of the holders of old land titles. They 
know that I am the only surviving lawyer much acquainted with the titles 
near this city. Indeed, it is well known that I have had more professional 
employment in suits involving these titles than any lawyer in Louisiana. 
Messrs. Lott and Neville, the Register and Receiver, have had the skill of 
gaining over to their side Mr. Commissioner Drummond, from whom I receiv- 
ed this morning a most offensive letter, dated the 15th inst. The Commis- 
sioner, a copy of whose letter I enclose, treats me as a criminal for venturing 
to question the integrity and capacity of his subordinates. But all that, 
however unpleasant, will not deter me from performing the part of a good 
citizen, for which task I consider myself fitted by my long experience, and 
because I have no political aspirations or political antipathies. I shall prove 
my case like a well prepared law-suit, by unquestionable evidence. For the 
first time since several weeks I am now able to leave my residence to procure 
plans and copies of writings for my case. I shall prove that Sulakowski's 



_ 3 — 

and Ross' survey of T. 12 S., R. It and 12 E., S. E. District of Louisiana, 
approved by Surveyor General E. W. Foster, can never be the basis of official 
action by the Land Department of the Government, and must be entirely set . 
aside; that it is so grossly erroneous that it would give rise to numerous 
law-suits if it were treated as presumptive evidence of the location and con- 
dition of claims and titles that have remained undisturbed for a century. 

The first wrong was the kind of contract the Surveyor General made. Mr. 
Gascon, the Surveyor General's chief clerk, told me only yesterday that the 
price paid for this survey was only $80f 0. I shall produce the testimony of 
one of the only two surviving surveyors who have had much to do with these 
localities and the titles of these lands, showing that on account of the nu- 
merous conflicts, the very indefinite and loose manner in which grants were 
made by the colonial governments, and the destruction of the most important 
evidence, such a survey, properly made, would be worth fully $50,000, and 
could not be finished under a number of years. Mr. Wm. J. McCulloh, who 
was for many years Surveyor General of the United States for the State of 
Louisiana, and a most ejjncient and able public officer, states to me that on 
one occasion, when he was Surveyor General, he was authorized to offer $50 
a mile for the survey of this township, but could get no competent surveyor 
to accept it, and would not himself have undertaking it for $150 a mile. Mr. 
Foster, however, gave out the contract for much less, but how ? He found 
an impoverished surveyor in the Parish of Terrebonne, who, owing to the 
general stagnation and depression of business, had nothing to do, and was 
glad to undertake anything that promised him a temporary living, whether 
he could do the work or not. The name of this surveyor was Sulakowski, 
and he was forced to divide his pitiable fee with Mr. Foster's brother-in-law, 
one Ross, who is a carpenter by trade, and not a surveyor, and who was to 
advance to Sulakowski the necessary money. Sulakowski had not the least 
idea of the difficulty of the work. 

If he had possessed the requisite knowledge, he could not honestly have 
undertaken it for such a price and within the time allowed for it. The money 
he received would not have kept him a live during half the time the work 
wool 1 have required to he honestly done. The General Land Office would 
not, we hope, have ordered the Register and Receiver to notify claimants to 
tile and sustain, before the 1st of next December, their opposition to the en- 
tries by Dr. A. II'. Smythe of lands reported by the Surveyor General as swamp 
lands, and almost immediately afterwards sold by the Register of the State 
Land Office to Dr. Smythe, as lands .subject to tidal overflow, for twenty -five cents 
per acre, if it, that is, the General Land Office, had possessed the least infor- 
mation concerning the condition of the records of the land office and of the 
public depositories of deeds in this city. Besides, the act of Congress of June 
lOth, 1H72, gives to claimants three years from its date within which to file 
their claims. 

Perfect strangers to this locality, like Ross and Sulakowski, could not pos- 
sibly have executed that survey properly ; they would have been deficient in 
the necessary knowledge of the points of departure. 

A very erroneous impression has prevailed in the General Land Office and 
its subordinate offices, to-wit : that any laud in Louisiana, the title to which 
had not been expressly confirmed, was public land. Complete grants which 



— 4 — • 

separated the land from the royal domain under the Colonial Government, 
are valid without confirmation. (See the letter of Albert Gallatin, Secretary 
of the Treasury, of March 30th, 1805, Vol. I of Laws, Opinions and Instruc- 
tions concerning Public Lands, p. 866, and numerous other authorities on this 
subject collected in my points, and in the decision of the Supreme Court of 
Louisiana, in the case of Lavergne's heirs vs. Elkins' heirs, 17 La. Rep., p. 
220.) On Sulakowski's and Ross' map, nearly the whole lower part of the 
City of New Orleans is represented "no confirmation found." When I for- 
ward to you the evidence in support of this sworn statement, it will be prov- 
ed to yon that the whole of this land is covered by French concessions. All 
French concessions I have ever seen were complete grants. It will appear 
from the decision of the Court in the case of Lavergne's heirs, above referred 
to, that there was then in the United States Land Office at New Orleans, a 
very large folio volume, containing the records of French and Spanish grants. 
As was stated by the Supreme Court of Louisiana, extracts from this book 
were always considered legal evidence of the grants. There were in that 
land office other volumes of complete and others of inchoate grants ; and ex- 
tracts from these volumes were also always considered as evidence in the 
courts. Most of these records and the other contents of that land office were 
destroyed by fire in 1865, but of the oldest and largest a great many grants 
were preserved and are still in the land office in a perfectly legible condition. 
These records were the " public records in which grants of land, warrants or 
orders of survey, or any other evidence of claims to laud, derived from either 
the French or Spanish Governments, may have been recorded," mentioned in 
the 5th section of the act of Congress, of March 2d, 1805, creating the first 
Board of Commissioners for ascertaining and adjusting the titles and claims 
to land within the territory of Orleans and the District of Louisiana. The 
old inhabitants of these regions, and particularly the owners of land in the 
vicinity of New Orleans, would not have there present troubles about their 
titles ; if this Board of Commissioners had done its duty as defined by that 
same act and section, which was "to decide in a summary way, according to 
justice and equity, on all claims filed with the Register or Recorder, in con- 
formity with the provisions of this act, and on all complete French or Spanish 
grants, the evidence of ivhich, though not thus filed, may be found of record on 
the public records of such grants ; which decision shall be laid before Con- 
gress in the manner hereinafter directed, and be subject to their determina- 
tion thereon." 

I believe that this was not done in a single instance. But I submit that a 
surveyor who is under contract for a survey of a township, is bound to make 
inquiry about at least the complete grants described in the above mentioned 
section of the act of Congress of March 2, 1805. 

I am confident that neither Sulakowski nor the Surveyor General ever ex- 
amined the remains of the original records still extant in the laud office. Bat 
I did so some weeks ago, and found there the two complete French grants 
which cover the ground which was purchased by Dr. Smythe as land subject to 
tidal overflow, at twenty-five cents per acre, both grants being made to the same 
person and for the same lands, varying only very little. One of these grants 
is as legible as when it was written ; the greater part of the other is also still 
legible. To show Avith what degree of carelessness this survey and plan 



were made, I beg leave to relate a remarkable incident, of which my knowl- 
edge and recollection are perfect. 

Some two years ago I visited the office of the Surveyor General here, and 
there saw Snlakowski at work on that map. He had heard that I had had 
many suits about lands lying within the boundaries of said map. He asked 
me whether I knew any title to a large piece of ground which, on his map, is 
now described as section 119, and as the claim confirmed to J. Bte. Castillon, 
O. B., 308. 9th claiin. I referred him to my old snit of Pontalba, et al vs. 
Copeland, et als., 3 La. Annual Rep., p. 86, the record of which is still in the 
office of the Clerk of the Supreme Court of Louisiana. In that record he 
would have found copies of the two grants to LeBreton whence the title of 
the Canal Bank to the land entered by /)/•. Smythe is derived. Snlakowski 
then laid flic Castillon claim down as it now appears on the map. On a sub- 
sequent occasion I saw on this map that he had written on an adjoining tract, 
section 137, "John Arrowsmith. under the Mauleon grant, 137.60 acres." I 
told Snlakowski that this land was a part of the claim of Jean Bte. Macarty, 
of December 22, 179.">, which, although confirmed, was defeated in the suit of 
Pohtalba et al vs. Copeland et als.. by an anterior grant and confirmation. 
The Mauleon grant is the claim confirmed in the name of Castillon, and 
which I represented in the case of Pontalba vs. Copeland. Half of it belong- 
ed to the Chalon family, and Snlakowski. who thought that he had made the 
discovery that the Mauleon grant extended over the triangle bearing Arrow- 
smith's came, (which it does not), went to see Mr. J. O. Chalon, offering to 
give him information showing that his family were entitled to more land than 
they had recovered, lying within the boundaries of his surveying contract, 
provided they pay him for it. Mr. Chalon excused himself by saying that 
his family had no money to spare, and were content to rely upon me as their 
counsel. This resembles a similar attempt of Julian Neville to make money 
out of the information to be found in his office, and which will be brought to 
your notice. 

The triangle above mentioned is moreover covered by the patent to General 
Lafayette, with which 1 am very familiar, because I recovered under it Sula- 
kowski's section 85, bearing the name of the heirs of General Lafayette. But 
when, subsequently, other counsel brought suit for the heirs of Lafayette, for 
the purpose of claiming the land behind the tract I had recovered, and as far 
back as the piece marked with Arrowsmith's name, the parties interested in 
those lands, made a compromise with the holders of the Macarty claim, and I 
defeated the claims of the heirs of Lafayette to this tract with the Macarty 
title mainly, because the latter had been confirmed before the issuance of the 
Lafayette patent. 

This is a fair specimen of the history of titles about New Orleans. Nearly 
all of these titles have undergone judicial investigation. It would bo crim- 
inal to allow such settlements to be disturbed by an ignorant surveyor. Sul- 
akowsky became gradually aware of the difficulty of getting accurate infor- 
mation, and, in his despair, said that as he could not get it he would go on as 
well as he could without that information. I have shown how he disregarded 
the information I gave him. He did the work at hap hazard, and having 
fallen out with the carpenter Ross, his associate and being very necessitous, 
he finished the work as quickly as possible. 



— 6 — 

The survey is full of the grossest errors, of which conclusive proof will be 
furnished you. 1 shall not here specify these errors, but the most satisfactory 
evideuce of them will soon be submitted by me. Yon will, of' course, readily 
believe that, being under oath and very familiar with the subject, I do not 
advance this lightly. I have no doubt that it can be proved, whenever in- 
quiry is made, that Mr. Foster is interested in speculations incompatible with 
his official duties, in conjunction with his brother, brother-in-law and other 
relations. Of one fact the Department has already been apprised by Mr. Jas. 
L. Bradford, a lawyer of this city, whom, however, I have not seen for up- 
wards of a year. This is substantially his charge : When secession took 
place in Louisiana, there had been received in the Surveyor General's office, 
but not yet approved, some one or more township surveys, executed under 
contracts. After secession, several other such surveys were returned into the 
office of the Confederate Land Commissioner. All the papers of that office 
were surrendered at Shreveport to General Herron, now Recorder of Mort- 
gages in this city, and went into the hands of Mr. E. W. Foster, United 
States Surveyor General. These maps bear on their face the word " Null." 
Mr. Foster afterwards contracted with a Mr. Robinson, and probably with 
other friends and relations, for the re-survey of these townships, and those 
re-surveys were approved and paid for, as if the land had been actually re- 
surveyed. But that was not the case. When these pretended re-surveys are 
compared with the maps that came from the Confederate Commissioner, it 
will be found that they are copies, literatim et verbatim, of the plans in the 
Confederate Commissioner's office, corresponding in every particular, in area, 
length and direction of lines, etc., with the plans from which they were evi- 
dently copied. Such a coincidence between two surveys of a township, made 
by different surveyors, is perfectly impossible, except upon the pypothesis 
that the one was copied from the other. 

It would require too much space for me to notice here at any length the 
case of Julian Neville, which is less important than that of Mr. Foster. But 
we can prove that he has openly avowed his determination to disregard the 
laws regulating his official fees; that while his salary is but a small one, he 
has declared that he would make his office worth $5000 a year ; that he has 
exacted fees for copies which never were heard of before ; that he has solic- 
ited bribes, and that he and the Register have treated most offensively per- 
sons who, like Mr. S. Z. Relf and myself, will not submit to their exactions. 
I am certain that these things and much more can be proved by gentlemen 
who are unwilling to volunteer their testimony for fear of incurring the 
coarse vituperation of Julian Neville, but who will give their testimony if 
called upon officially to do so. If you could direct officially some gentleman, 
such as the United States District Attorney, to swear and examine the wit- 
nesses whom we would bring before him, with liberty to us to examine them 
also after giving notice to persons against whom their testimony will be di- 
rected, the Department would soon be in possession of proper evidence con- 
cerning the character of its officials here, and probably also ascertain whether 
they are not chargeable with illegal practices, and whether they, and how 
many of them are interested, together with other United States and State 
officials, in the principal fraud which we are employed to resist. If such an 
investigation can be entered into, I would request that it be done promptly. 



as my professional engagements will soon compel me to return to Washing- 
ton. Such an investigation, if confided to proper hands, would he hailed as 
a token of returning justice to this population. 

In my letter to you of the 18th iust., I called the entries made ~by Dr. S my the 
an unblushing fraud. This Dr. Smythe, who is the physician of the Charity Hos- 
pital here, is evidently only an interposed person. Mr. Foster, the Surveyor 
General, declared the lauds in question to he swamp and overflowed lands, 
which should he listed to the State, and a very short time afterwards Mr. 
John Ray, the Register of the State Land Office, sold them to Dr. Smythe, as 
lands subject to tidal overflow, at twenty-five cents per acre. These lands 
are held by the Canal Bank and its assigns under a complete grant of October 
6, 1857, which Sulakowski overlooked, because he did not examine with suffi- 
cient attention the record of the case of Pontalba vs. Copelaud, 3 Annual, 
Rep., 86, in which it is copied, nor the remains of the old book of French 
grants, of which many old grants, and among them the greater part of this 
one, still exist. Bat what can be more absurd than to represent as swamp 
and subject to tidal overflow, a navigable canal through which a great pro- 
portion of the building materials, brick, lumber, wood, etc., which are used 
here are brought to this city, and which was laid out in 1832 by General, then 
Lieutenant Delalield; and the line shell road along the canal; the hotels and 
pleasure grounds at the end of the canal on the Lake shore; another public 
house with a garden, called the Half Way House; a toll gate and the toll- 
collector's house : a tract of land formerly used as a race course and now 
sold for a ceiueterj ; the Oakland Riding Park, a place of great resort for 
j)ic-nics and other public amusements — in short, lands on which several hund- 
red people permanently reside, and part of which is the highest land in the 
vicinity of New Orleans, and never was overflowed by breaks or crevasses of 
the levees on the river, or by backwater from the lakes, and not even during 
the terrific hurricanes of 1812 and 1831. 

All this land covered by Dr. Smythe'* purchase, is within the incorporated 
limits of the Cities of New Orleans and Carrollton. More than that, these 
lands lie within the draining works of New Orleans, intended to improve the 
salubrity of the City, for which every inch of ground in the city, high or 
low, is taxed, on which nearly ten millions of dollars have been expended, 
and which are now progressing at an expense to the city of about thirty 
thousand dollars a month, and part of which is protected on its upper side, 
and a portion of its front by the most substantial levees of the State, and 
crossed by the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern Railroad. All this 
was ignored by Sulakowski and Foster. Nor was it represented on Sulakow- 
ski's map as claimed by anybody. I have not seen Sulakowski's field notes, 
but Mr. Foster declared this land to be swamp laud and subject to overflow, 
and Mr. John Ray. the Register of the State Land Office, sold it to Dr. A. W. 
Smythe— all of them knowing perfectly well the real character of the land. 
Was it possible for any one acquainted with these localities not to suspect 
glaring and unblushing fraud in these transactions, even without the aid of 
what has since leaked out ? This will be still more apparent when the State 
legislation on this subject is considered. A law of March 17, 1859, (acts 1859, 
p. 159), first permitted land subject to tidal overflow and listed to the State, 
to be sold at twenty-five cents per acre. This law w is reproduced in the Re- 



vised Statutes of 1870, compiled by John Ray, as section 2793. It was re- 
enacted, with interesting modifications, by the 3d section of an act of the 
Legislature of Lonisiana, of May 31, 1871, the 13th section of which repeals 
all laws inconsistent with it. The first two laws relative to such lands, pass- 
ed in 1859 and 1870. required that lands intended to be sold as lands subject to 
tidal overflow should first be patented to the State, and that the sales should 
be made by the Register and State Treasurer, who was ex officio Treasurer of 
the Land Office. The amended act of May 31, 1871, omits the word patented, 
and authorizes the Register alone to sell. By that law John Ray was en- 
abled to make the sale to Dr. Smythe. Was that law passed for that express 
purpose ? Who can doubt it ? 

Mr. Julian Neville's insolent letter to me of the 17th of last month occa- 
sioned the difficulty here spoken of. I wrote to my sons and partners in 
Washington what I saw was going on here, without, however, asking for any 
action by the Department upon the matter, and at the same time, on the 18th 
ult., wrote a very courteous letter to Commissioner Drummond. enclosing a 
copy and the original of Julian Neville's letter, and explaining that I had 
withdrawn the papers with the consent of the Register for the purpose of ex- 
amining them and having them translated. I further stated that having re- 
ceived such an insolent letter from the Register and Receiver, I could no 
longer hold intercourse with those persons, and that, therefore, I would avail 
myself of the right given to claimants by the act of Congress of June 22, 
I860, and June 10, 1872, to file their claims and prosecute them in the United 
States District Court, and that consequently I would n^t return the papers I 
had obtained from the Land Office, but would file them with the petition in 
said District Court, where they now are. 

I beg leave to enclose that very letter, which is correct in every particular, 
except in the statement that the papers I had received had been filed by Mr. 
Finney. In point of fact, they do not bear the least mark showing them to 
have been filed in that office, though they were copied there. That letter was 
read by my son, Albert C. Janin, to Commissioner Drummond, who abruptly 
exclaimed: "I won't listen to anything until the papers are returned," and 
could only be induced to pay any attention to what my son was reading 
by the evident determination of the latter to insist upon his hearing my 
statement of the matter. 

Then my son communicated to the Commissioner the suspicions of fraud I 
had thrown out in my private correspondence with them, and this produced 
the Commissioner's extraordinary letter to my firm of the 2d instant, (a copy 
of which I enclose), in which we are treated as impertinent iutruders into the 
business of the Department, soundly rated for daring to suspect the integrity 
of the officials the Land Department has in this State, and defied to prefer 
charges under oath and supported by evidence. This letter was replied to by 
my son Albert C. Janin, under date of the 4th instant. 

It is not agreeable to me to undertake the exposure of every fraud that 
comes to my knowledge ; but the truly threatening tone of the Commission- 
er's letter of the 2d of this month compelled me to repel the imputation of 
being afraid to speak out, and I therefore wrote to him the letter under date 
of the 10th instant, which I afterwards had printed, and of which I took the 
liberty of sending you two copies. 



— 9 — 

Commissioner Drummond has thus forced me to perform the part of a de- 
tective. I have, therefore, taken the trouble to make this long statement 
under oath. I hope it may lead to an investigation, and, to use the Commis- 
sioner's own language in his letter of the 2d instant., "place the Govern- 
ment in a position to rid itself of corr ipt and dishonest officials." I will 
take the further trouble of producing the necessary evidence, if you will per- 
mit me to prosecute the matter before any officer of your Department other 
than the one whose personal hostility to me is so apparent that I could expect 
from him neither courtesy nor justice. 

Under date of the 15th instant lie addressed to my firm a letter of which 
the following is the closing part : 

■• In view of your continued refusal ro return the records borrowed, as afore- 
said, of the local Land Office at New Orleans, it becomes my duty, as an 
officer, to take such measures as may be necessary to protect the Government 
and parties having business before this office and subordinate offices from a 
further interference with public records by parties who have wantonly viola- 
ted the confidence reposed in them and disregarded well established rules of 
professional propriety and practice, and T have, therefore, now to inform yon 
that from and after this date, and until further notice from the Commissioner 
of this office, you will not be permitted to examine any record or paper filed 
herein, unless such examination be for the purpose of obtaining data in sup- 
port of any charges you may de-div to make against officers of the Govern- 
ment, nor from this date, until such notice, will you be recognized as attor- 
neys in any case now pending or which may hereafter be presented to the 
General Land ( Office. 

•• Very respectfully, 

"WILLIS DRUMMOND, 

" Commissioner." 

Commissioner Drummond thus nnkertakes to disbar me and my sons and to 
destroy our land business, which, as he well knows, is very large. He har- 
bors an undisguised animosity towards me, because I defend the rights of my 
clients with zeal and pertinacity. You may recollect, Mr. Secretary, that I 
twice called upon you for the purpose of inducing you to change the form of 
the scrip which has to be issued to successful claimants under the act of 
.June 2>. 1860, and which the Commissioner refuses to make assignable or 
transferable by delivery— a question in which the Cities of New Orleans and 
Baltimore, the Hon. Caleb Gushing, and other clients of mine are interested. 
On one occasion I was accompanied by the Hon. Postmaster General, and on 
the other by Hon. L. A Sheldon, who the former as a citizen of Maryland 
and the latter as a representative from Louisiana feel an interest in the fine 
legacy which the late John McDonogh left to the two cities of large land' 
claims, upon which 1 have obtained judgments. These cities cannot locate 
wild lands with their scrip ; they must be enabled to sell it; but the form in 
which the Commissioner issues it depreciates its value, and renders a sale of it 
very difficult. Not one sensible reason have I ever heard for refusing to make 
the scrip assignable. It does not make the least difference to the Govern- 
ment, and I truly believe the Commissioner refused it because I proposed it, 
and perhaps also because if might hive benefited Louisiana people, for whose 
rights I am convinced he has a great contempt. You will, perhaps, remem- 
ber that you called Mr. Drummond before you in my presence, and that he 



— 10 — 

was considerably nettled by my showing, in answer to his objection that he 
must follow precedent, that not a single acre of scrip had ever been issued 
under the act of 1860, and that consequently no precedent existed. 

Commissioner Drummond undertakes to disbar me upon a simple unsup- 
ported statement of Julian Neville, without taking into consideration my 
statement or investigating the matter. This is certainly the most extraordi- 
nary proceeding ever attempted by a public officer holding a quasi-judicial 
appointment. Mr. Drummond cannot point to a single discourteous word in 
the very extensive correspondence I have had with his office since his ap- 
pointment. But being now personally attacked and insulted by him, I shall 
not mince the matter, but shall review his course towards me and my sons 
in the language expressive of my true feelings. 

If Mr. Drummond belongs to the legal profession, he must know that the 
bar is a representative body, maintaining the rights of its members and its cli- 
ents. One of the duties of that body is, not to allow itself to be cowed by 
offensive and prejudiced judges, but to resist them and to appeal from them 
to public opinion. If the Commissioner had intended to be just and fair 
towards me, he would have judged of my character, not by the statements of 
Julian Neville, but by seeking information from purer sources. He might 
have ascertained chat I am one of the oldest members of the bar of the 
Supreme Court of the United States, having been admitted in the January 
term of 1846 (4 Howard, 503), and he would have addressed himself, for in- 
formation as to my professional standing, to the Judges of the Supreme 
Court, the members of the Washington bar, or to his predecessors, Messrs. 
Jos. S. Wilson, J. M. Edmunds, John Wilson, Thos. A. Hendricks and James 
Shields. 

But it is evident that Mr. Drummond knows as little of me as he does of 
Julian Neville and the latter's reputation here. He knows me only as a per- 
tinacious defender of Louisiana land claims. He no doubt knows a great 
deal of railroa*l land grants, of which I know nothing; but I am certain he 
knows nothing, do doubt for want of opportunity, of Louisiana land claims, 
with which I have been occupied the greater part of a long life, and of which 
many persons consider me a good judge, among them the Judges of the for- 
mer Supreme Courts and the older lawyers of Louisiana. And precisely be- 
cause I believe that I possess accurate knowledge on the subject, I resist the 
encroachments of the ill-informed General Land Office upon what I consider 
'sacred rights, and for which, to use the language of Chief Justice Marshall, 
in Foster and ELam vs. Neilson, 2 Pet., "the faith of the nation is 
pledged." 

If Mr. Drummond is a member of my profession, I have to inform him that 
I am as much his senior in practice as I am in years, and I repel with indig- 
nation the charge of professional misconduct and breach of faith which he 
no doubt made in a moment of ill-advised ebullition of temper, such as he 
exhibited when my son, Albert C. Jauin, read to him, despite all sorts of ill- 
natured interruptions, the first letter I wrote to him on this subject, under 
date of the 18th ultimo. I can assure him that this incident excites a good 
deal of attention here, and I have as yet not seen a single gentleman who 
does not approve my course after the reception of the insoleut letter of the 
Register and Receiver of the 17th ultimo, and fully agree with me that no 
decent lawyer, North or South, would have acted differently. 



— 11 — 

The charges made by the Commissioner in his letter to my firm of the 16th 
instant, part of which I have copied into this letter, are coarse and offensive, 
particularly when preferred against a person so much his senior in practice 
and years, and who is apparently defenceless against him, except in extreme 
cases, when official annoyance assumes intolerable proportions and recourse 
to a higher authority becomes necessary. But these charges are not more 
coarse and offensive than they are absurd. I have proved this in my letter 
to the Commissioner of the 10th instaut, which I have verified by my oath, 
and in the letter I sent to you on the 18th instant. But I will briefly recapi- 
tulate the matter. 

By the act of June 22, 1860, claimants may, in certain cases, submit their 
claims either to the board composed of the Register and Receiver, or to the 
United States District Court. My friends, Messrs. Lea, Finney and Miller, 
the regular counsel of the Canal Bank, filed its claim for confirmation with 
the Register and Receiver, and deposited for recording with their notice of a 
claim a number of documents, being copies of the titles recorded in various 
offices, by which their property was conveyed from hand to hand from the 
year 1784 down. All of these papers, except one, were merely copies of docu- 
ments contained in public offices, which anybody can have copied. This*one 
document was an original report of a survey made by Carlos Trudeau, the 
royal surveyor under the Spanish Government. When I was afterwards em- 
ployed in the case, at the instance of Messrs. Lea, Finney and Miller, I looked 
at these papers in the Land Office, and finding that they could not con- 
veniently be examined there and required translation, I requested Mr. Lott 
to let me take them home for that purpose, which request he unhesitatingly 
granted. Mr. Lott is a young man of good manners and evidently of much 
more intelligence and better education than Julian Neville, audi know noth- 
ing against him except that he signed the insulting letters copied into my 
printed letter to Commissioner Drummond of the 10th instant, and the suspi- 
cious circumstance, which I have learned from a reliable source, that his two 
sureties are interested in the Sinythe speculation. This, of course, I know 
only from hearsay. 

The loan of such papers, under such circumstances, to the counsel of the 
party by whom they were presented as evidence, never was refused. By the 
act of June 22, 1860, the evidence had to be exhibited and recorded, but not 
to be retained. Accordingly these papers were deposited for recording in the 
office of the Register and Receiver, but not filed. They are now filed in the 
District Court of the United States in this city, they do not show the least 
indication of having been in the Land Office, and were, in fact, not filed 
there. The only proof that they ever were there is that they are recorded in 
that office. 

The only use of such documents is to be examined aud recorded, and that 
has already been done with them. They were never meant to be retained in 
the Land Office. It was never imagined by any one before Commissioner 
Drummond and toe present Register and Receiver that the titlo papers of 
claimants should remain in that office. This is a most extraordinary aud ab- 
surd proposition. Thousands of claims have been filed in the different United 
States Land Offices in Louisiana for confirmation, and in those of them which 



— 12 — 

have not been destroyed by fire hardly any original titles can be found, ex- 
cept a few which have been left there by accident, death or negligence. 

Who will believe that any act of Congress would require of parties, before 
their claims should be recognized, that they deposit their original titles in 
the Land Office, and thus relinquish the custody of them? If the people of 
this Land District had formerly done so, their titles would now have been 
destroyed by fire, as nearly the whole contents of the Land Office were in 
1885. 

But this case is much stronger, and the assumption of the Commissioner 
and the Eegister and Keceiver, that our evidence should be left in the Land 
Office after it has been recorded, is most preposterous. It is quite contrary 
to the invariable practice of that office as dictated by common sense and not 
prohibited by law. Before the fire of 1665, that Land Office was filled with 
a large number of volumes containing copies of the evident e that had been 
submitted by claimants, and all of which, was possibly the exception of a 
few straggling and forgotten sheets, had been returned. Nobody ever before 
imagined that important original documents should be left in an office from 
which papers are frequently stolen. Besides, the papers I withheld in this 
case are not originals, with the single exception of -a report, or, as it is here 
called a "process verbal" of survey, by Carlos Trudeau. Of all the others 
copies could be obtained by applying to the offices where the originals are 
deposited and bound up. Moreover, these identical documents, are now filed 
in the United States District Court, and open to the inspection of everybody 

The whole attack upon me by Julian Neville and Commissioner Drummond 
is most unwarranted and inexcusable. In Neville's case it is the result of dis- 
appointed greed for fees lost to him by my withdrawal of the case from his 
jurisdiction, and its probable consequences. For what lawyer having the 
least self respect will go before a board composed of such officials, when he 
has the right to take his case into a court of justice ? 

It required the ingenuity of Messrs. Drummond, Lott and Neville to ques- 
tion the right of a claimant to withdraw from the Land Office his own suit 
and to take along with him the evidence he had submitted, in order to file it 
in a court of justice. What possible use couH the Land Office make of such 
evidence ? 

In Commissioner Dnimmond's case this attack is the result, not of a sense 
of official duty, but of personal hostility, such as, owing to human infirmity, 
sometimes arrises between a judge and a lawyer practising before him, but 
probably never was shown in a manner so undisguised and unwarranted. I 
have a better command over my temper than Mr. Drummond has, and I am 
sure that I have never, during my intercourse with him, given him the least 
ground for conrplaint against me, unless it be by refusing to accept his decis- 
ions and rulings as legal gospel, or by expressions contained in this letter, 
which his aggressiveness has extorted from me. 

I therefore request. Mr. Secretary, in justice to my rights and to the hon- 
ored profession of which you are a distinguished and I a very old member, 
that you will suggest to the Commissioner that he rescind the orders exclud- 
ing me from the General Land Office at Washington and its subordinate 
offices in this city. 



— 13 — 

I say nothing here of the attempted exclusion of my sons and partners, for 
the Commissioner himself can hardly seriously suppose that he has the right 
to disbar persons who had no connection whatever with the transaction upon 
which he basis his orders, but were, in point of fact, hundreds of miles away 
from the scene of action. 

I have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, 

Your obedient servant, 

LOUIS JANIN. 
Louis Janin, being duly sworn, deposes that the facts stated in the forego- 
ing letter as of his own knowledge, are true, and the facts therein stated 
upon information derived from others, he believes to be true. 

LOUIS JANIN. 
Sworn to and subscribed before me. 

JULES MOSSY, 

U. S. Commissioner of La. 



•- — ■ — 

New Orleans, September 18th, 1873. 
Hon. WILLIS DRUMMOND, 

Commissioner of the General Land Office: 
Sir— On the 16th of last July the New Orleans Canal Banking Company, a 
well known bank in this city, instituted proceedings in the New Orleans 
Land Office, claiming the confirmation of their title to a tract of land on 
which a canal leading from New Orleans to tbe Lake Pontchar train, and a 
fine macademised shell road on the borders of the canal, have been constructed. 
Messrs. Lea, Finney and Miller, the regular attorneys of the Canal Bank, 
filed the claim and a number of documents, being evidence in support of it. 
But, after pursuing the subject further and being -unable to find the original 
title, they advised the Canal Bank to employ me in this and other land claims, 
telling the Bank that I was better acquainted with the land titles of this 
State and the language in which they are written. 

It is but lately that I was employed in this case, and I found in the Land 
Office nineteen documents enumerated in a list which was filed by my friend 
Mr. Finney, of which I enclose a copy. These documents were mostly in 
French and Spanish, and had to be translated. 

On the 8th instant I requested Mr. Lott to let me take these papers to my 
lodgings, that I might examine them, take notes of them, and have them 
translated. I could not conveniently employ more than one translator, 
and that w T as not his exclusive business, and notwithstanding his industry he 
could not finish the translations before yesterday afternoon. Yesterday even- 
ing I found on my table, to my great astonishment, a letter of which the fol- 
lowing is a copy : 

"U. S. Consolidated Land Office, 

''New Orleans, La,, Jan. 17th, 1873. 
"LOUIS JANIN, 

"Attorneys at Law, 

u lSfo. 79 Bienville Street. 
"Sir — You obtained from this office on the 8fch instant certain papers per- 
taining to the case of the Canal and Banking Company vs. the United States, 
with the promise that they would be returned in a few days. This promise 
has not been fulfilled, and this manner of obtaining papers of the Land 
Office, not new to you, we consider surreptitious. You will therefore return 
these papers to this office without delay . 

" Yours, etc., 

" HARRY LOTT. Ber/hter. 
"JULIAN NEVILLE, Receiver." 
My present letter will be handed to you by my son and partner, Albert C. 
Janin, who will also exhibit to you the original letter of the Register and 
Receiver, that the handwriting of Julian Neville may be recognized by any 
gentleman in the Department. But I have requested my son not to file it, 
but to return it to me. I want the people here and in Washington City to 



— 15 — 

"know what they have to expect when forced to transact business in this 
Land Office. 

After that letter I must avoid all intercourse with the writers thereof that 
is not imperatively required by professional engagements, and as the law 
under which this claim of the Canal Bank is prosecuted gives the claimant 
the choice of going before the Register or Receiver or before the United States 
Courts, I arrest the proceedings before the former and shall immediately 
bring suit in the United States District Court in this city. 

As further regards that letter, I have of course not answered it, except by 
informing its writers that I was going to send it to the Department, and that 
I would request you to direct them to send to the Clerk of the United States 
District Court, in this city, all documents which have been tiled by the Canal 
Bank as evidence of the claim here spoken of, which are not already in my 
possession. Requesting to be informed of the result of this application, 
I have the honor to be, 

Your obedient servant, 

LOUIS JANIN. 

\. B. The gentleman who has copied my letter just directs my attention 
to the circumstance that the letter of the Register and Receiver is dated 
the 17th of January. But I am certain it was written on the 17th of this 
month. The claim of the Canal Bank was filed oo the 16th of last July. 

LOUIS JANIN. 

On the 30th of September Commissioner Drumraond was informed by Louis 
Janin & Sous, through the undersigned, in a letter of which no copy was 
kepi because it was an informal communication and intended simply as a 
warning to him, that they had reason to suspect that certain officials in 
Louisiana were attempting to make use of his office for the perpetration of 
frauds upon the rights of citizens of New Orleans and Carroliton. and that they 
hoped he would lend them his assistance in exposing and defeating these frauds. 

Below is the Commissioner's answer to this friendly communication. It 
ought, however, to he stated that during the forenoon of the day on which 
the Commissioner dictated this letter to his private Secretary, he was closet- 
ed tor some tine with a certain gentleman from Louisiana who is perfectly 
familiar w ith the subject. And the undersigned feels justified in stating that 
their conversation turned upon this very matter, from the fact that on that 
same forenoon, while he was at -the Land Office making inquiries about a copy 
of Sulakowski's survey which he had ordered, a command came from the 
Commissioner that it should be given to the gentleman in question. 

ALBERT C. JANIN. 

DWPARTMENT OF THK INTERIOR. GEXERAL LAND OFFICE, 

Washington, D. C, October 2d. 1873. 
LOUIS JANIN & SONS, 

Washington City, D, C: 
GEN i LEMEN— Id answer bo your letter of the 30th ultimo, in which you an- 
nounce the discovery of astounding frauds and corruption in what is known 
as the Sulakowski survey of the townships in which New Orleans and Carroll- 
Ion are situated, and in which you are pleased to refer to this office as a me- 
dium through which these "astounding frauds" are to be perpetrated, I have 
the honor to state that the lands reported by the Surveyor General as swamp, 



— 16 — 

have not been approved to the State of Louisiana, and that no fraud can he 
consummated until that is done, as any sale made by the State prior to such 
approval will become null and void if the swamp claim is rejected. Had this 
office waited, however, until your recent discovery of these "astounding 
frauds," before taking - measures to inform itself as to the character of the 
lands and the situation of affairs, I fear that the interests of the people of 
New r Orleans, for whom you express so much solicitude, would have suffered 
seriously. But you will see, by reference to a copy of a letter to the Eegister 
and Receiver atXew Orleans, herewith enclosed, that this office ordered an 
investigation of the matter as early as August 53d, 1773, and caused a notice 
to be published in English and French, for eight successive weeks, in order 
that all persons claiming an interest in the lands, or in any wise affected by 
the claim of the State, under the swamp land grant, might have an opportun- 
ity to present their claims at any time prior to December 1st, 1873, and take 
such steps as they might deem necessary to protect any interest they have in # 
the lands returned as swamp. 

The only obstruction that the Land Office at New Orleans has encountered 
in complying with the instructions of this office, and making the investiga- 
tions necessary to enable it to protect all legal claims, has been the unwar- 
ranted and illegal detention of certain papers borrowed by the senior member 
of your firm from the local Land Office. As soon as they are returned to the 
Eegister and Receiver the investigation will be proceeded with promptly, 
aad all legal rights will be duly respectected and protected. 

As the Surveyor General returned and listed the lands as swamp, I am un- 
able to see that the Register and Receiver were guilty of a fraud, or anything 
wrong in informing the Register of the State Land Office of that fact. 

So far as your other charges against United States officials are concerned, 
I will say that they are too general in their nature to justify this office in 
making them the subject of investigation ; but if you will make them under 
oath, giving names, dates and particulars, a prompt investigation will be 
made, and such action taken as the interests of the Government and the pub- 
lic may demand. I regard it as due to the public and to the "theivish officials'' 
charged by you with the grave offence of being implicated in these frauds, 
and with what you doubtless regard as the still graver offience of making 
"professions of loyalty and patriotism," that you should make your charges 
under oath, in a specific form, so that they can have an opportunity of put- 
ting in their offence. And I feel very sure, that you, as a gentleman of honor, 
expressing such deep interest in the public welfare, will not only accord 
them that privilege, but place the Government in such a possition as to make 
the proper investigation, and, if need be, rid itself of corrupt and dishonest 
officials. I earnestly hope that you will make your charges specific, and fur- 
nish the proof on which you base them, at the earliest practical moment. 

" Very respectfully, 

"WILLIS DRUMMOND, 

" Commissioner." 

Washington, October 4th, 1873. 
Hon. WILLIS DRUMMOND :— (Private.) 

Dear Sir — We are sorry to find ourselves drawn into an unpleasant con- 
troversy with you, not because of auy apprehension on our part of injury to 



— 17 — 

ourselves — for we are entirely dependent of any such consideration — but 
because we desire to practice our profession in peace and without any unne- 
cessary contention and unpleasantness. But you will readily understand that 
we cannot allow jour letter to us of the 2d instant to go unanswered. We 
therefore ask you to read again our communication of the 30th ultimo, to note 
how uncalled for the tone and wording your reply are, and to withdraw the 
latter from your records. If you decline to do this, then we ask, as a matter 
of right, that our formal answer, herewith enclosed, be also placed upon your 
records and stand as our reply to your communication of the 2d instant. 
Very respectfully yours, 

LOUIS JANIN & SONS. 

By Albert C. Janhi. 
Department of the Interior, General Land Office, 

Washington, D. C , October IP, 1873. 
LOUIS JANIN & SONS, 

Washington, I). C. : 
Gentlemen -In reply to your favor of the 4th inst. you are informed that 
ray letter of the 2d inst. was very carefully considered, in fact, every word 
was dictated by me. 

After more mature reflection, I find nothing in it which I desire to withdraw, 
explain, revise or modify in any respect whatever. 

Respectfully, 

WILLIS DRUMMOND, 
Commissioner. 

Washington, October 4th, 1873. 
Hon. WILLIS DRUMMOND, 

Commissioner of the General Land Office : 

Sir— We hasten to acknowledge the receipt of your reply, dated the 2d 
instant, to our letter of the 30th ultimo, and to express to you the astonish- 
ment with which we note the tone and language of your communica- 
tion. Until better advised, we must indulge the hope that, under the 
pressure of official business, you signed that letter without a perusal of its 
contents somewhat more careful and deliberate than is usually required by 
official communications. It is a matter of painful surprise to us that we 
cannot call attention, even in an informal way, to the outrageous frauds 
which certain parties are attempting to perpetrate upon a large body of citi- 
zens of New Orleans and Carrollton, without arousing a spirit of hostility 
and exposing ourselves to personal insults ; but that painful surprise is now 
greatly intensified when we find that, iu reply to a friendly letter from us 
apprising you of the fact (of which you could not be cognizant) that such 
frauds were being attempted, and that we intended to expose them before 
Congress, we are assailed in a communicaiion from your office, signed by 
yourself, in atone of sarcasm entirely uncalled for, and with charges of mat- 
ters derogatory to onr personal and professional character. If you will care- 
fully peruse our letter to you of the :iCth ult., you will see that we made no 
demand upon your office for an investigation of the matters alleged by us. 
We stated that we proposed to expose the frauds, denounced by us, at the 
next session of Congress ; we warned you that certain dishonest persons were 
attempting to make use of your office for their private purposes, and we ex- 



— 18 — 

pressed the hope that, with your assistance, we should succeed in defeating 
their attempts. We did not look for any reply to this merely informal com- 
munication, hut if we had, we should have expected a cordial proffer of your 
aid and support in crushing any attempted fraud upon your. office and the 
rights of private citizens. Instead of this, what do we find ? A sneer. We 
quote from your letter : " Had this office waited, however, until your recent 
discovery of these ' astounding frauds, before taking measures to inform 
itself as to the character of the lands and the situation of affairs, I fear that 
the interests of the people of New Orleans, for whom you express so much 
solicitude, would have suffered seriously. But you will see by reference to a 
copy of a letter to the Register and Eeceiver at New Orleans, herewith en- 
closed, that this office ordered an investigation of the matter as early as 
August "23d, 1873, and caused a notice to be published, in English and French* 
for eight successive weeks, in order that all persons claiming an interest in the 
lands, or in any wise affected by the claim of the State under the swamp-land 
grant, might have an opportunity to present their claims at any time prior to 
December 1st, 1873." 

This is nothing neAV to us, nor, unfortunately, to the people of New Orleans 
and Carrollton, who are thus put to an immense expense to save their property 
from spoliation, and made to bear the burden of proof, Avhen the most super- 
ficial inspection of most of the land to which we refer, would have satisfied 
the Surveyor General that he ought not to have approved the survey and 
listed the lands to the State as swamp lands. But can it be true that the in- 
terests of the people of .New Orleans would have been seriously endangered 
if you had delayed such action for one month? Is fraud so swiftly consum- 
mated? Before the date of our letter we knew that the survey was all wrong, 
but we charitably assumed that this was the result of error, and that you 
would come to the rescue of the parties affected by the error of your subor- 
dinates without subjecting them to a ruinous expense to vindicate their rights. 
Lately, however, we have discovered that this supposed error was the result 
of fraud, and we so informed you in our letter of the 30th ult., not imagining 
that you already suspected fraud, since we had not heard of any investigation 
being ordered by you, and were bound to presume that you would have or- 
dered an investigation into the circumstances of the survey and listing of the 
lands as swamp lands, if you had had any suspicion. We must, therefore, 
still believe that our information was new to you, and must continue to feel 
surprised that our promised exposure of the fraud, instead of being welcomed, 
is sneered at. 

So far as that part of your letter is concerned, in which you say that our 
other charges against United States officials are too general in their nature to 
justify your office in making them the subject of an investigation, but that if 
we will make them under oath, giving names, dates and particulars, you will 
investigate them, we have only to state that we have not asked of your office 
any such investigation. As we have already informed you, we fully intend 
to make the promised exposure, " giving names, dates and particulars," at 
the proper time and place, and if we cannot get from you the co-operation 
and assistance which we promised ourselves, that fact will only make our 
task more laborious, though, we confidently hope, none the less successful. 
The thievish officials whom we charge with fraudulent conduct will he fur- 



— 19 — 

nished by us with all the opportunity you bespeak for them for vindicating 
themselves ; but we prefer to be ourselves the custodians of our proofs, until 
the proper time for submitting them arrives. So much for the matters of 
public conceru of which your letter treats. 

We now wish to say a few words in relation to personal matters: 

1. If you are not too much engrossed with official business, you will much 
oblige us by favoring us with an explanation of the precise meaning of the 
latter part of the following sentence which we find in your communication: 
u I regard it as due to the public and to the thievish officials charged by you 
with the grave offence of being implicated in these frauds, and with what 
you doubtless regard as the still graver offence of making ' professions of loyalty 
and patriotism,' that you should.'' etc., etc. We dislike covert insinuations, 
and before making any reply to this one, we desire to be clearly informed 
what is meant by it. 

2. You take the responsibility of charging the senior member of our firm 
with the unwarranted and illegal detention of certain papers borrowed from 
the Land Office at New Orleans. Perhaps it has not occurred to you that it 
would be advisable and more consistent with propriety to investigate the 
matter and ascertain the truth of the charge you thus make, before, upon the 
authority of an ex-parte statement by letter and telegram, venturing to in- 
dorse, iu an official communication, the unfounded calumny of a corrupt sub- 
ordinate. You can. without difficulty, satisfy yourself that the papers you 
refer to were iu reality never filed in the Land Office, but were merely left 
there by the counsel of the Canal Bank to be copied, and were freely and 
voluntarily given to the senior member of our firm for the purpose of having 
them translated, and they were never even demanded of him, although he 
was on several occasions subsequently in said office, until he undertook to 
thwart the attempts of the Receiver to extort illegal fees from his clients. 
The papers belong absolutely to the Canal Rank, and are probably filed hy 
this time in the clerk's office of the United States District Court for Louisiana. 
Nor is it true that the withdrawal of the papers has given rise to any delay 
in the investigation of the claim of the Canal Bank. Investigate the matter, 
and you will soon discover how much reliance is to be placed upon any state- 
ment emanating from Julian Neville, the Receiver in question. 

We remain, etc., 

LOUIS JANIN & SONS. 

New Orleans, October 10, 1873. 
Hon. WILLIS DRUMMOND, 

Commissioner of the General Land Office. 

Sir — I received this morning from my sons and partners in Washington 
City your letter to my firm of the 2d instant, in which, to my great surprise 
aud regret, you charge me with professional delinquency, and treat with de- 
rision the sincere expressions of contempt and indignation with which, iu 
private letters to my sous, I spoke of the nefarious frauds with which land 
owners in the vicinity of this city are now threatened under color of law. 

I had no idea that my sons would communicate these opinions to you, as I 
demanded no action. I am not the knight-errant of justice to everybody, and 
I have seen many frauds practiced in land matters, in my long career, without 
interfering when my clients were not directly interested. But my sons, 



— 20 — 

knowing that I am familiar with the suhject, and that I do not advance ac- 
cusations lightly, helieved in them, and thought proper to prepare you for the 
coming disclosures. For I know that they will come, though I, at my ad- 
vanced age, desire peace, and did not wish to he the spokesman. 

My immediate client, the New Orleans Canal and Banking Co., whose prop- 
erty has been sectionized and sold as swamp land subject to tidal overflow, at * 
twenty-five cents an acre, including the canal, the shell- road, the half-way 
house, the hotel at the lake end, the Metairie race course, and a cemetery, for 
all of which the bank is responsible as warrantor, has no interest in the 
swamp land question. For that corporation has a complete final grant from 
the French Government of Louisiana, of the 6th of October, 1757, of record 
in the original book of French concessions— such a title as should have been 
confirmed without special application, under the Act of 1805. But as you 
challenged me, without any proposition of my firm, to proffer charges, I shall 
do so, if you deem it to the public interest, and shall do so over my name 
and under oath, and substantiate the charges by evidence, although I shall 
receive no compensation for this disagreeable trouble and loss of time. My 
motive is to show that the sympathy which I privately expressed for this, in 
land matters, very much oppressed community, was sincere, and not, as 
would appear from the tone of your letter, ridiculous affectation. A passage 
in your letter warrants the remark that I do not intend, for the first time in 
my life, to be drawn into a political controversy. I speak of the proprietary 
interest in land matters only. All that I claim is that my strictly professional 
communications may be treated by the present head of the Land Department 
with the same courtesy which they received from his numerous predecessors 
during the many years that I had business before them. 

But what concerns me personally is to repel the charge of professsonal mis- 
conduct which you make upon the statement of Mr. Julian Neville, the Re- 
ceiver of the Land Office. I can ascribe this only to your want of attention 
to the letter I addressed to you on the 18th ult., or to your not having received 
it. In July last, the New Orleans Canal and Banking Company riled in the 
New Orleans Land Office a claim for the confirmation of a tract of land repre- 
sented on Sulakowski's survey of T. 12, S., R. 11 East., S. E. District of Lou- 
isiana. Messrs. Lea, Finney &. Miller, the counsel of the Bank, filed a notice, 
and also deposited a number of documents to be used as evidence in the case * 
one an original, the others certified copies obtained from various offices. In 
September last, Messrs. Lea, Finney & Miller, requested the Bank to employ 
me in that case, as I was more familiar with the local titles than they were. 
I looked at the papers, found them numerous, mostly in foreign languages, 
which required translation for use of the Government employees, and, in 
fact, such papers as could not be satisfactorily studied in such an office. I 
therefore requested Mr. Harry Lott, the Register, to let me take them home 
to study them and have them translated. This request was very courteously 
granted by Mr. Lott. I, of course promised to return them as soon as possi- 
ble, or whenever they were wanted, though nothing was said of the precise 
time of returning them, as I could not determine what time the translators 
would require. 

Previously, Mr. Stoek, of the firm of Hosmer & Co., had written to the 
Register and Receiver that his firm had been employed by the State of Lou- 



— 21 — 

isiana to examine the claim of the Canal Bank, and asked for the appoint- 
ment of a 'day for a conference. The Register and Receiver appointed the 
llth of September, and Mr. Stoek, by letter, promised to attend. On that day 
I was in the Land Office, and Mr. Lott asked, " where are the papers?" and 
I answered, "there," pointing to a black satchel, in which the persons in the 
Land Office have constantly seen me carrying my papers. As I am very 
friendly with Mr. Stoek, I requested the Register and Receiver and their 
clerk to send him, if he arrived, right to my lodgings, where the docu- 
ments were being translated, and where I could have given some explana- 
tions that would have saved him a good deal of trouble. But on the llth of 
September we did not suppose that he would come, as the yellow fever was 
then repotted to be prevalent, and the conference was adjourned to the first 
of October. And nobody asking to look at the papers, I left them in my 
satchel, and took them home, my translator not having yet finished his 
work. 

These translations were finished on the 17th ultimo, and on the 18th I re- 
ceived by mail the following astonishing letter: 

New Orleans, January 17, 1873. ) 
(Ought to have been September. ) 
" Louis Jaxjn, Attorney at Law f No. ?'.) Bienville street. 

"Sir — You obtained from this office, on the 8th inst., certain papers per- 
" taining to the case of the Canal and Banking Company vs. the United 
" States, with the promise that they would be returned in a tew days. This 
" promise has not been fulfilled, and this manner of obtaining papers from 
" the Land Office, not new to you, we consider surreptitious. 

'• You will, therefore, return those papers to this office without delay. 
'• X"ours, etc.' 

" HARRY LOTT, Register, 
'JULIAN NEVILLE, Receiver:' 

This letter of Mr. Neville, whom you call a bonded officer of the United 
States, was a deliberate and intentional insult to me. Whj T he singled me 
out for his impertinence, what his disgraceful motives were, will become ap- 
parent to you during the sequel of bis official career. 

[ transmitted a copy of that letter to you in a letter of the 18th of last 
month, and stated to you that, after having been thus addressed, I could have 
no further intercourse with those persons, and was going to transfer the 
prosecution of the claim from the New Orleans Laud Office to the District 
Court of the United States in this city, under the provisions of the Act of 
Congress, of June 22, 1800, revived by the Act of Congress of June 10, 1872, 
which gives this choice of jurisdiction to claimants. I do not believe that 
any lawyer with self-respect could have acted differently. 

I never received an answer from you to that letter, but I informed the 
Register and Receiver of its contents, without, however, indulging in recrimi- 
nation or discussion, and then I received the following letter, dated the 24th 
of September, signed by Julian Neville alone : 

" LOUIS JANIN, 

" Attorney at Laiv, Bienville street, 
il Your note of 23d instant, is at hand, and I have to say that it is not sat- 
" i8factory. 



— 22 — 

st You obtained papers from this office in a manner very disreputable. We 
"have demanded their return, and you reply that you have taken the case 
"from this office. We do not know you in the case. You promised to return 
"the papers on the 9th inst. Have you done so ? No. You took advantage 
"of a trust placed in you and retained the papers — this is your usual game. 

" You say you have filed the papers in the District Court. This is not true 
" — another attempt at deception. You say you have written to the Com- 
u missioner at Washington. We are glad to hear it. We have also written 
" to him ; and in our letter we told him of the appreciation you had of him— 
" of the gross language you expressed towards him, both in this office and 
" that of the Surveyor. 

" We have seen the District Attorney, who agrees with us as to your ob- 
taining the papers. If they are not returned we will take measures to ob- 
tain possession. 

" JULIAN NEVILLE, 

" Receiver." 

Of course I did not answer that letter. With his usual veracity, Mr. 
Neville advanced that I had said that I had filed the papers in Court, where- 
as, after having received the first insolent letter of the 17th ultimo, I simply 
wrote to the office, without recrimination or abuse, that I had retained the 
papers, and that I would retain them since they were the property of my 
clients, and the land office had no further use for them, as I had concluded to 
transfer the case to the United States District Court. 

This transfer, however, required the preparation and copying of a petition. 
I was in no particular hurry, since I had determined not to continue the case 
in the land office, nor to give Mr. Neville an opportunity to anuoy my clients 
by refusing to give up the papers, and compelling them to take out fresh copies 

On the 27th of September the Cashier of the Canal Bank received the fol- 
lowing letter : 

CHARLES JUMONVILLE, ESQ., 

Cashier Canal and Banking Company. 
Dear Sir — We are instructed by telegraph from the Commissioner of the 
General Land Office, received this morning, to refuse Mr. Janin any access to 
the records of this office, and not to recognize him as an attorney. We shall 
obey instructions, and place the whole matter in the hands of the United 
States District Attorney. 

Very respectfully, your obedient servants, 

HARRY LOTT. Register. 
JULIAN NEVILLE, Receiver. 
My petition having been finished and copied, I filed it in the United States 
District Court, together with every one of the papers I had obtained from the 
land office. 

In the meantime my letter to you of the 18th ultimo, above mentioned, re- 
mained unanswered. Even in your letter of the 2d inst., addressed by you to- 
our firm in answer to a letter written to you by its members in Washington, 
on the 30th ult., you do not allude to it. Did you never receive it? If so, I 
can account for your belief in Mr. Neville's assertions. 

The very morning of the 18th ult., when I received the first insulting letter, 
I went to the land office and asked Mr. Tully, the clerk, whether all the pa- 



— 23 — 

pers I had withdrawn Lad been copied. He answered in the affirmative. Mr. 
Neville sat within a few feet of the clerk, but I did not speak to him, nor he 
to me. 

I submit that it has been the invariable practice of the land offices in Lou- 
isiana, when its members were sitting as boards of commissioners, to return 
the evidence to the claimants after it had been examined and filed. What 
immense danger claimants would run if their titles could be taken from them 
is best illustrated by the present condition of these land offices! In this 
case, the evidence had been copied into records of the land office. What 
business could that office have with the original copies, since the case was 
withdrawn from it and preparing for the District Court ? 

Mr. Neville's object was blackmailing, of which infirmity he has given other 
instances. 

As your letter of the 2d inst., to my firm by its tone imposes upon me the 
obligation of proffering charges, I shall do so, as my more serious business 
may give me time to do it, and I shall begin with Mr. Neville. I am ready to 
make a charge against him of 80 distinct a character that it can be under- 
stood at once without a complicated enquiry. But it requires the copying of 
voluminous papers, and may not be ready before a certain number of days. 
I have the honor to be, sir. your obedient servant, 

LOUIS JANIN. 
Department of the Interior, General Land Office, 

Washington, D. C, Oct. 15th, 1873. 
Messrs. LOUIS JANIN & SONS, 

Attorneys at Law, 

Washington, D. C. : 

GENTLEMEN— -By a letter dated September 20th, 1S73, the Register and Re- 
ceiver of the U. S. Consolidated Land Office at New Orleans, Louisiana, in- 
formed this office that on the 8th of that month the Senior member of your 
firm. Louis Janin, Esq., ''by false representations and promises," borrowed 
from that office, and refused to return, the papers tiled and of record in the 
case of the X. (). Canal and Hanking Co. vs. the U. 8., then pending before 
said Register and Receiver, under the act of June 22d, 1860, (12 Stat. p. 85) 
and supplemental legislation. Iu reply this office, having directed those 
officers to again make a demand for the return ot* said papers and report the 
result, and having been notified by them that demand had been made and 
that the said papers had not been returned to their custody, addressed a tele- 
gram and a letter both dated September 26th, 1873, to the said Register and 
Receiver, directing them neither to recognize Mr. Louis Janin as attorney nor 
permit him to have access to the records and papers of their office. 

Since this action I have received a letter dated Oct. ICth, 1873, from Mr. 
Louis Janin. by which it appears that said papers have not been returned 
but have been filed in the C. S. District Court of Louisiana, from which it 
clearly appears that it is not the intention of your firm to again place said 
papers in the office of the U. S. Register and Receiver at New Orleans. I 
have, therefore, by telegram of this date, directed the U. S. Surveyor General 
for Louisiana, until further orders, to deny the firm of Louis Janin and Sons 
access to his records and papers, except for the purpose of preparing charges 
against Government officials, and to refuse to recognize them as attorneys 



— 24 — 

before his office under any circumstances ; and by letter of this date I have 
communicated similar instructions to the Register and Receiver of the U. S. 
Land Office at New Orleans. 

In view of your continued refusal to return the records borrowed as afore- 
said of the. local Land Office at New Orleaus, it becomes my duty, as an offi- 
cer, to take such measures as may be necessary to protect the Government 
and parties having business before this office and subordinate offices from a 
further interference with public records by parties who have wantonly viola- 
ted the confidence reposed in them, and disregarded well established rules of 
professional propriety and practice, and I have, therefore, now to inform you 
that from and after this date, and until farther notice from the Commissioner 
of this office, you will not be permitted to examine any record or paper filed 
herein, unless such examination he for the purpose of obtaining data in sup- 
port of any charges you may desire to make against officers of the Govern- 
ment, nor from this date, until such notice, will you be recognized as attor- 
neys in any case now pending or which may hereafter be presented to the 
General Land Office. 

Very respectfully, 

"WILLIS DRUMMOND, 

" Commissioner." 



POSTSCRIPT. 



As the unjustifiable attack of Commissioner Drummond upon myself and 
my law firm, and our professional character and business, has placed me in 
the somewhat ridiculous attitude of a martyr sueing for justice. I can assure 
the numerous persons for whom we have business necessarily coming before 
the General Land Office, and among others our distant client the City of Bal- 
timore (under John McDonogh's munificent bequest), thac, conscious of the 
entire rectitude of my professional course throughout a long life, and fully 
acquainted with the rights of my profession and of the citizens I represent, 
and having also resided at Washington City for a considerable number of 
years, I am too well informed of the enlightened fairness of Mr. Secretary 
Delano and of the disposition of Committees of Congress to act fairly, at least 
where no political questions are involved, to entertain the least apprehension 
for our clients' interests from the Commissioner's hostility to me and my firm. 
And the many citizens of New Orleans, whose property-rights are directly 
threatened by the fraudulent entries of land based upon Sulakowski's and 
Ross' survey, may rest assured that the opposition which we have encountered 
from Commissioner Drummond and his subordinates in this city will neither 
deter us from exposing the frauds in question, nor prevent us from being en- 
tirely successful in defeating the dishonest schemes of the speculators en- 
gaged in them. 

LOUIS JANIN. 

New Orleans, November itlt, 1873. 



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